This invention relates to an aircraft's center of gravity and fuel level advisory system and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to an advisory system for a military aircraft having a plurality of fuel tanks with external and internal expendable loads such as different types of launch missiles, bombs and other types of weaponry.
Heretofore, a military aircraft such as the B-52 was originally designed for minimum center of gravity travel as weapons were released from the bomb bay. Later when external weapons carriage capability was added to this aircraft special fuel management procedures were required to keep the aircraft within center of gravity limits. The aircraft's center of gravity travels aft as external weapons are released.
Currently, different types of cruise missiles are being externally mounted on the B-52 aircraft. The forward placement of these heavy missiles has made weight and balance control and fuel management procedures a major concern to the military. Pilots and co-pilots of this aircraft need to know the aircraft's center of gravity and how many external weapons can be released without exceeding the aircraft's aft center of gravity limit. Currently, this task is accomplished by using a slide rule called a load adjuster to compute aircraft center of gravity and curves to determine how many external weapons may be safely released. This type of procedure is time consuming, cumbersome and subject to error.
In the following United States patents, U.S. Pat. No. 2,751,921 to Baldwin et al, U.S. Pat. No. 2,948,146 to Bergeson, U.S. Pat. No. 2,987,254 to Kolisch, U.S. Pat. No. 3,042,060 to Lindemann, U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,979 to Bussell et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,486,017 to Arseneau, U.S. Pat. No. 3,626,752 to Levins and U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,605 to Miller various types of load analysis systems have been used with different types of aircraft for providing the flight crew with continuous information as to the center of gravity of the aircraft. None of these prior patents specifically provide the unique advantages of having an on-board computer processor unit with remote display for alerting the pilots of the aircraft when center of gravity limits are being approached as external and internal loads such as different types of weapons are released from the aircraft and the center of gravity is changed.